they're not, as they say, wedded to the assad government. >> that's right. they've taken a different position over the last several months in they're not necessarily wedded to that government. however syria remains the largest arms customer for russian weapons exports. the russians use a military base, a naval base on the syrian coast so they were very important in that sense. but russia obviously wants to maintain influence in the middle east and through syria and if they can't do it through assad regime, perhaps another regime that would still be willing to deal with them could be acceptable. >> rose: what's the nature and size of the chemical weapons? >> well, we're talking about several hundred tons, really. different kind of nerve agents and other type of weapons, some of which the syrians have had for decades, some have been manufactured more recently so one of the big concerns here is what happens if the regime flees and some of these end up in the hands of some of the extremists. extremists they're even linked with al qaeda. there have been reports t